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BX 7748 .<S5 H3 1924 | 
Harvey, Thomas Edmund, 1875- 
Silence and worship | 


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SILENCE AND WORSHIP: 
A STUDY IN QUAKER EXPERIENCE 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
THE RISE OF THE QUAKERS 


A WAYFARER’S FAITH 
THE LONG PILGRIMAGE 





SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


A STUDY IN QUAKER EXPERIENCE 





BY 


T. EDMUND HARVEY 





@ey YORK. 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
| 1924 


(All rights reserved) 


Printed in Great Britain by 
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING 


INTRODUCTORY 


THIS essay touches but the fringe of a great subject. 
It was prepared for discussion in a group of men 
representing very different schools of thought and 
belonging to various religious denominations, some 
of whom desired to see it printed. 

It should be noted that the subject has been 
limited to the consideration of silence in collective 
or congregational worship, and its place in individual 
worship is only dealt with in its relation to the 
worship of a group. Some of the ground covered 
by this study has been traversed previously by 
Violet Hodgkin (Mrs. John Holdsworth) in her 
Swarthmore Lecture on Silent Worship, which 
deals also with other aspects of the theme, in a way 
which has made many beside the present writer 
her debtors. 

A further limitation is implicit in the historic 
background of the religious fellowship whose mode 
of worship is here described. The Quaker experiment 


was not made on the untilled soil of the forest, but 
3 


6 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


on ground prepared by centuries of Jewish and 
Christian experience. The worship here described 
is coloured by the outcome of that experience and 
cannot be wholly separated from it. This path of 
prayer then is a part of the Christian way, and 
those who trod it have tried to be disciples. They 
sought to follow one Master, as Himself the way, 
the truth and the life 


eye > te Se Sonoma = — 


Silence and Worship: 


A Study in Quaker Experience 


“= 


FROM very early times and amongst many different 
faiths silence has taken a place, and sometimes an 
important place, in worship, more especially when 
the worshippers took part in an act of communion 
with the Divine object of worship. Periods of 
silent prayer form in practice a very important 
part of the worship of countless Christians, and 
it would seem that collective silent prayer is being 
increasingly used for short periods in many places 
of worship as an addition to the ordinary liturgy. 
But probably no Christian community shares the 
position of the Society of Friends, which for some 
eight or nine generations in the British Isles and 
several of the Eastern States of America has made 
silence the basis of all its acts of collective worship, 
although it is true that numbers of Friends in 
other parts of America have in recent years ceased 
to take this position. 

How did the early Quakers come to adopt the 
practice of silent worship, which so soon became 
universal, as the background, at least, of their 
meetings ? 

In the strange confusion of sects and religious 

7 


8 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


controversies. which prevailed during the Civil Wars. 
and the early years of the Commonwealth, groups 
,of men and women, known as Seekers, separated 
| themselves from the organized worship of the 
Churches, and were in the practice of meeting together 
jand waiting in silent prayer. Recent research has 
shown that it was especially amongst such groups 
of Seekers that the early Quaker preachers found 
their converts. In 1652, in particular, when the 
Quaker movement took more definite shape, George 
Fox found in the large group of Seekers in southern 
Westmorland and north-west Yorkshire hundreds 
of eager disciples, the Seeker preachers, Thomas 
Taylor, John Camm, Francis Howgill and John 
Audland, becoming almost at once prominent leaders 
of Quakerism. Thus from the earliest years of the 
Society of Friends many of its members had already 
been accustomed to meet in devotional silence, 
and were not adopting a new practice, but con- 
tinuing and developing one to which they were 
used. 

The silent worship of the early Quakers was, 
however, different in character from that of the 
Seekers which preceded it, as an examination of 
contemporary evidence will make clear. The 
Seekers were not, strictly speaking, an organized 
sect, although sometimes so treated by writers of 
the time. The movement of which they form a 
part may be connected with that little-known 
sixteenth-century reformer, Caspar _.Schwenkfeld 
(1489-1561), Silesian nobleman and scholar, who in 
his wanderings and persecutions encouraged little 
groups of disciples to meet quietly together, with- 
drawing from the sacraments and worship both of 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 9 


_the Catholic and Protestant Churches, with the view 
that in the general apostasy from the true life of 
Christianity it was the duty of faithful disciples to 
await a fresh unfolding of Divine grace. 

Such communities of “‘stille Frommen”’ con- 
tinued in Germany until the eighteenth century, 
and a few of their descendants are to be found in 
America to-day. Their teaching probably influenced 
groups of Dutch Mennonites, who withdrew in like 
manner to hold private gatherings of their members 
without regular preachers, for mutual edification, 
the reading and discussion of the Scriptures, and 
periods of waiting in prayer, followed sometimes by 
prophetic preaching. * 
Perhaps the earliest English ‘‘ Seeker” was 
Bartholomew Legate, a cloth merchant, who, during 


* The sect of Familists, or the Family of Love, identified 
with the Seekers by William Penn in the (on the whole) 
friendly reference to them in his preface to Fox’s “‘ Journal,” 
seem to have been really a distinct body or group of bodies, 
following the teaching of Henry Nicholas. According to 
the not unprejudiced Ephraim Pagitt, they were, however, 
prepared to conform outwardly to other religions. Nicholas 
himself resembled George Fox in many points of his teaching 
and urged silent worship on his followers: ‘‘ Grow up in 
stillness and singleness of heart,” he says, urging his family 
to “break spiritual bread together in stillness, abiding 
steadfast in prayer, till all covering, wherewith their hearts 
after the flesh are covered, is done away, that is to say, until 
the spiritual, heavenly and uncovered being of Christ appears 
and comes to their spirit.” Introduction to ‘Glass of 
Righteousness,’ quoted by Rufus M. Jones, ‘Studies in 
Mystical Religion,” p. 438. 

William C. Braithwaite has pointed out in the case 
of Thomas Barcroft, of Colne, an instance of one who 
had been a Grindletonian Familist and later became a 
Quaker looking back with gratitude to his earlier teachers as 
having led him in the right direction (‘‘ The Beginnings 
of Quakerism,” p. 24). 


10 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


business visits to Holland, came into touch with 
Mennonites of the Seeker type and became a preacher 
amongst them. In 1608 he had the honour to be 
the last English heretic burned at the stake at 
Smithfield. 

Throughout the next generation groups of Seekers 
became more numerous in England, though our 
chief knowledge of them is from the attacks of 
opponents. An exception is the book of John 
Jackson, published anonymously under the title 
“A Sober Word to a Serious People, or a Moderate 
Discourse respecting as well the Seekers (so called) 
as the present Churches.’’ We learn from his 
preface that numbers shared for a time with these 
Seekers in withdrawing from the worship of the 
organized Churches under a sense of its insufficiency 
and then, failing to find adequate spiritual food in 
the waiting meetings of the Seekers, returned for 
help to their former pastors. Some, he says, “ finding 
them (the Seekers) inconsiderable both for quantity 
and quality, and nothing extant which in any 
measure might be a stay to them, by laying a 
eround for their dependence and further waiting 
upon God, have waxed weary and almost fainted 
in their minds, and at best have returned to that 
condition from whence at first they brought them- 
selves, happy they were escaped, using such 
expressions as these: ‘Come, let us go back to 
Egypt for bread: it’s better take it at the mouth 
of ravens than starve.’ ” 

Jackson’s book is itself in large measure negative, 
arguing that all the existing Churches alike lack 
Divine or apostolic authority. At the close he 
briefly advocates that the ‘‘ mourners of Sion”’ 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 11 


should have friendly Christian communication with 
one another, diligently searching the scriptures and 
awaiting the possibility of a fresh immediate 
revelation from above. His last words are these: 
“Now the Lord direct our hearts into the Love of 
God, and into a patient waiting for Christ, for as 
much as unto them that look for Him shall He 
appear the second time without sin unto salvation : 
therefore in patience let us possess our souls, 
knowing that the time is coming, yea hastening, 
when the blind shall see, the lame shall leap, and the 
stammering tongue be unloosed. In the meantime, 
LET BROTHERLY LOVE CONTINUE.” 

It is interesting to note that Jackson did not join 
the Quakers, but engaged in printed controversy 
with James Naylor, though it was a controversy 
less bitter than most of that day. 

The Quaker apothecary and preacher, Charles 
Marshall, was as a youth a member of a group of 
Seekers at Bristol, which he briefly describes in his 
journal: “‘ And in those times, which was about 
the year 1654, there were many which were seeking 
after the Lord; and there were a few of us that 
kept one day of the week in fasting and prayer ; 
so that when this day came, we met together early 
in the morning, not tasting anything ; and sat down 
sometimes in silence, and as any found a concern 
on their spirits and inclination in their hearts, they 
kneeled down and sought the Lord; so that some- 
times before the day ended, there might be twenty 
of us might pray ; men and women, and sometimes 
children, spake a few words in prayer ; and we were 
sometimes greatly bowed and broken down before 
the Lord, in humility and tenderness. And unto 


12 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


one of these our meetings, in the year 1654, came 
dearly beloved John Audland and John Camm, 
messengers of the everlasting God. . . .” * 

Several friendly references to groups of Seekers 
and their relation to the first Quaker gatherings 
are to be found in the collection of material on the 
origin of the Quaker movement collected by the 
Society in the later part of the seventeenth century.f 

The meetings of the Seekers probably varied 
greatly in different places and in accordance with 
the spiritual development to which different groups 
had attained, but it may be said that their very 
name denotes the weak point of their communion. 
They were still seeking, they were not yet finders. 
They met in a sense of the inadequacy of other 
worship, not because they had found a worship 
which satisfied their need. 


* Charles Marshall, “‘ Sion’s Travellers Comforted,” 1704. 

+ Thus we read that in 1652 at Mobberley, in Cheshire, 
there were ‘“‘a people who sometimes met at the house of 
one Rich. Yarwood ... whose custom was when met 
together neither to preach nor pray vocally, but to read 
the Scriptures and discourse of religion, expecting a further 
manifestation ”’ (“‘ First Publishers of Truth,’ p. 18). 

“ There were several people in Wigton aforesaid, and 
thereabouts in Cumberland, that had separated themselves 
from the national worship and met together by themselves 
to seek the Lord, if possibly they might feel after Him ”’ 

- 54). : 
ee again at Ross in Herefordshire, the first Quaker 
messengers met with many people, ‘‘ who had some time 
before separated themselves from the public worship of the 
world, ... who did often before meet together by them- 
selves, and would many times sit in silence and no particular 
person appointed to speak or preach amongst them, but 
each of them did speak by way of exhortation as had freedom, 
so that the Lord’s power was mightily at work in their hearts 
and great openings there was amongst them”’ (p. 124). 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 13 


This is put very clearly from the Quaker stand- 
point by George Keith in 1670, in his little tractate 
on ‘‘ The Benefit, Advantage and Glory of silent 
Meetings,” in which he writes: “ Before the breaking 
forth of this clear manifestation of faith that now 
shineth in great brightness and glory, which began 
in the nation of England some twenty-six years ago, 
or so, there was many people, both in that nation 
and elsewhere, in whom there was true desires and 
breathings raised and begot after the Lord ... and 
about the same time, the people, even these of 
them ... who were most tender, ingenuous and 
zealous (through a weakness of understanding, and 
because of the customary way they had been used 
to), had too much an eye to words and too much 
a life in them, for they could not meet, but some 
behoved to speak, in doctrine, exhortation, or prayer, 
etc., otherwise they would have thought the time 
misspent, so much as passed away of it without 
words.” * 

Keith goes on to describe the very different nature 
of the silent meetings among Quakers, in which the 
worshippers entered into the life which is beyond 
words and silence might continue for hours to the 
spiritual help of the worshippers. 

The writings of Edward Burrough, who was one 
of the most prominent of the first group of Quaker 
preachers, contain many references to his earnest 
efforts to guide his readers to a true understanding 
of the implications of this silent worship and the 
dangers of hasty utterance. 

Thus, writing to Friends in London in 1655, he 


PEC De Cit Disk 


14 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


says: “Dear Friends, great is our care on every 
side, and we are jealous over you lest ye depart 
from the simplicity of the Gospel... therefore 
all in silence wait, be swift to hear, slow to speak, 
and all wait upon the Light in diligence . . . take 
heed of forward wills in speaking, lest your minds 
be drawn out from the movings of the Pure within 
to hearken to words without. ... And therefore 
now as the Power ariseth within you, dwell low in 
it, and sink down in the same, and as things open 
in you, speak not forth but as things open, treasure 
them in your hearts. * 

And again in another letter: ‘‘ Wait in silence, 
and wait to have salt and savour in yourselves, to 
know the voice of Christ from the voice of the 
Stranger, for till that be known in yourselves you 
are not able to judge. ”’ f 

While in a third letter he adds: “‘ And all be 
still, and cool, and quiet, and of a meek spirit, that 
out of boisterousness and eagerness and feignedness, 


_and self-love you may be preserved in your measures 


up to God, and if any be moved to speak a few 
words in your meetings, this we charge you all, 
that you speak nothing but that which is given in ; 
and in the sense, and in the cross; and do not add 
your own words, for then you will burden others 
who dwell in the life. . ..’”’ t 3 
This advice to those beginning to speak in the 
ministry is characteristic of the early Quakers’. 


‘standpoint. The minister is to feel that the words 


he speaks are given him as a message; he must 


* Works, p.. 71: t Ibid.) p. 7G. 
{ Edward Burrough’s Works, p. 74. 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 15 


have, as he speaks, the continuous sense of this,’ 


and of dependence.on the Divine spirit whose*” 


guidance he has to seek ; and his attitude of mind 
must be one of humility, in undertaking a burden/ 
painful to be borne without the presence of the 
support thus given. 

Two years later -Fox wrote an Epistle on 
the same topic, which, though involved in form and 
not without some repetition of thought, contains 
passages characteristic of the man and illuminating 
in their exposition of the way of worship which 
he advocates. 

“Come out of your bustlings, you. that are 
bustling and in strife one against another, whose 
spirits. are not quieted, but are fighting with 
MOIS! S62) or 
_you up to God, when you are still from your own | 

thoughts.and imaginations, and desires and counsels 
of your own hearts, and motions and will; when 

you stand single from all these, waiting upon the 
’ Lord,-your strength is renewed ; he that waits upon 
the Lord, feels his shepherd and he shall not want : 
and that which is of God in every one is that which 
brings them together to wait upon God, which 
brings them to unity, which joins their hearts together 
up to God. So as this moves, this is not to be 
quenched, when it moves to pray or speak. . 

“ And all you that are in your own wisdom, and 
in your own reason . . . it is a strange life to you 
to come to be silent, you must come into a new 


* “An Epistle to all people on the earth (who are to be 
silent and who to speak).” ‘‘ Doctrinals,”’ pp. 91-106. 


16 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


world. Now thou must die in the silenceto the 
fleshly wisdom, knowledge, reason and under- 
standing ; so thou comest to feel that which brings 
thee to wait upon God (thou must die to the other), 
that brings thee to feel the power of an endless life, 
and come to possess it.” 

This was followed by another brief message,* in 
which Fox writes: ‘ Concerning the silent meetings, 
the intent of all speaking is to hing unto the life 
and to walk in and to possess the same, and to 


7 ay “live’in and to enjoy it, and to feel God’s presence, 


and that.is in the silence (not in the wandring, 
whirling, tempestuous part of man or woman), for 
there is the flock lying down at noon-day and feeding 
of the bread of life and drinking at the spring of 
life, when they do not speak words; for words 
declared are to bring people to it, and confessing 
God’s goodness and love as they are moved by the 
Eternal God and His Spirit, and so all ravenous 
spirits that are from the witness of God in them- 
selves cannot be still, cannot be silent, it is a burden 
to them... so—are.gone from the silence and 
stillness and from waiting upon God to have their 
strength renewed, and so are dropt into the sects 
among one anothes, nd so have the words of Christ 
and the Apostles, but inwardly are ravened from 
the still life, in which the fellowship. is attained 
to in the Spirit of God, in the power of God, which 
is the Gospel, in which is the Fellowship, when 
there are no words spoken.” 

It is evident from this passage that at this early 
date some who had joined for a short time the 


* “ Doctrinals,’’ p. 103. 


a * 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 17 


Quaker meetings had fallen away dissatisfied with 
their basis of silence, and hostile critics must have 
been many. 

Thus in 1663, in Cornwall, Fox’s “ Journal ”’ 
records :— 

“Ye priests and professors of all sorts was much 
against Friends’ silent meetings ; and sometimes ye’ 
priests and professors would come to our meetings : 
and when they saw 100 or 200 of people all silent 
waiteinge upon ye Lord they would breake out into . 
a wondringe and despiseinge and some of a 
woulde say : looke how these people setts mumminge 
and dumminge. What edification is heere where 
there is noe words: Come, woulde they say, lett us 
bee gonne, what should wee stay heere to see a 
people sett of this manner: and they sayde they 
never saw ye like in there lifes.’ * 

Not a few of the early Friends, however, as well 
as many at later times up to our own day, found 
in the silent meeting for worship a turning-point 
in their lives. Thus, for instance, John Grave of 
Isell, in Cumberland, became a Quaker in 1654, 
“being invyted by a fr*. to a sylent meet, in w™ 
God’s heavenly power broke in upon him, whereby 
he was wonderfully shaken, insoemuch yt he was 
constrain’d to cry out agst the many gods in 
Egypt.” j 

Compare the experience of the Welsh Quaker, 
Richard Davies, at his first Quaker meeting :— 

“ When the First-day of the week came, we went 
to a meeting at W. Pane’s at the Wild-Cop (at 
Shrewsbury), where we had a silent meeting, and 


* “Cambridge Journal,’ Vol. II, p. 28. 
{.. Birst Publishers’ of ‘Truth,’’ p.-43. 


2 


18 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


tho’ it was silent from words, yet the word of the 
Lord God was among us, it was as a hammer and 
a fire, it was sharper than any two-edged sword, 
it pierced through our inward parts, it melted and 
brought us into tears, that there was scarcely a dry 
eye among us; the Lord’s blessed power over- 
shadowed our meeting, and I could have said that 
God alone was Master of that assembly.” * 

The way in which meetings for silent worship 
were started amongst the new converts to Quakerism 
is well pictured by another Cumberland Quaker, 
Christopher Story : 

“After several meetings amongst us, and divers 
convinced, we were advised to keep a meeting to 
wait upon the Lord, tho’ there were none to speak 


. words : so we agreed to have a meeting at my house 


mary: 


Oe ne 


in the year 1672: being but a few, we concluded 
to have it in an upper room of mine; and when 
we sat down together, I may say I was hard beset 
to keep my mind from running hither and thither 
after the transitory things of this world, and a 
great warfare I had for the greatest part of the 
meeting. Yet near the conclusion, those vain 
thoughts vanished, and the Lord was pleased to 


_ bring into my remembrance how that men who 


nak ean 7 
te 
rent ucntaeser an 


had great possessions in this world had their day 
and were gone; and in a little time I saw clearly 
my day would soon run over; and I was wonder- 
fully comforted in my spirit, and my inward man 


renewed in a sense of the Lord’s nearness; and _ 


being on this wise encouraged, we kept to our silent 
meetings and report went abroad that we had 


* “An account of the convincement, exercises, services, 
and travels of ... Richard Davies,’’ 1765 ed., p. 40. 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 19 


settled a meeting, and several came and sat down 
among us; and when there was a Publick Friend 
we mostly had the meeting without doors, but when 
only ourselves, in that upper room,” * 

This is typical of what took place all over the 
country as the Quaker movement spread. t+ 

Perhaps the most striking instance of the way 
in which these silent meetings might be the means 
by which a profound spiritual change might come 
is the well-known passage in the ‘‘ Apology,” in 
which Robert Barclay describes his own conversion 
to Quakerism : 

“For not a few have come to be convinced of 
the truth after this manner, of which I myself, in 


* “A brief account of the life . . . of that faithful elder 
and minister of Christ Jesus, Christopher Story,” 1726, 
Hp.620, (27, 

+ Thus Robert Hawkin of Liskeard, in Cornwall, after 
speaking of the visits of the first Quaker preachers, con- 
tinues ; 

“Soon after this we were preetty many gather’d in this 
place to sit down in silence and waite upon y*® Lord, and we 
had many good and compfortable seasons and meettings att 
this time, where we felt y* alone Teacher nigh us administring 
to our spiritual wants, by whome we were enabled both to 
wait and to suffer for His blessed truth and Name sake ”’ 
(“ First Publishers of Truth,’ p. 22). 

Similarly, in Bedfordshire, we learn that when the first 
Quaker messengers brought their message in 1654, some of 
the new converts “soon after convinced met together att 
Dunstable and Sewell, when but five or six in number, to 
wait upon God in silence, and ye Lord blesd us with His 
presence, and gave us ye spirritt of descerning, that in 
measure the ear tasted words, as ye pallett meat. And when 
itt pleasd ye Lord to call our dear and well-beloved Jno 
Crook into the minestry, He gave him ye word of wissdom 
to speak to every state, by which many were convinced and 
others confirmd in ye blesd truth” (“ First Publishers of 
eruth,” pp, 6,7). 


20 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


part, am a true witness, who not by strength of 
arguments, or by a particular disquisition of each 
doctrine, and convincement of my understanding 
thereby, came to receive and bear witness of the 
truth, but by being secretly reached.by this life ; 
‘for when I came into the silent assemblies of God’s 
people, I felt a secret power among them, which 
touched my heart, and as I gave way unto it, I 
found the Evil weakening in me and the Good raised 
up, and so I became thus knit and united unto 
them, hungering more and more after the increase 
of this power and life, whereby I might feel myself 
perfectly redeemed.” * 

The chapter on worship in which this passage 
joccurs is the completest exposition of the practice 
and belief of the early Quakers with regard to their 

ethod of worship, and has exercised a_ great 
influence on Quaker thought in succeeding centuries. 
It is worth while to cite a few of the more note- 
worthy passages : 

“When assembled, the great work of one and all 
ought to be to wait upon God; and returning out 
of their own thoughts and imaginations, to feel the — 
Lord’s presence, and know a gathering into his 
name indeed, where he is in the midst, according 
to his promise. And as every one is thus gathered, 
and so met inwardly in their spirits, as well as 
outwardly in their persons, there the secret power 
and virtue of life is known to refresh the soul, and 
the pure motions and breathings of God’s spirit are 
felt to arise; from which, as words of declaration, 
prayers, or praises arise, the acceptable worship is 


* Barclay’s_ s_‘ Apology,” Proposition XI, 8th ed., p. 308. 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 21 


known which edifies the Church and is well-pleasing 
to God. And no man here limits the Spirit of God, 
nor bringeth forth his own conned and gathered 
stuff ; but every one puts that forth which the Lord 
puts into their hearts: andit is uttered forth not in 
man’s will and wisdom, but in the evidence and 
demonstration of the Spirit, and of power. Yea, 
though there be not a word spoken, yet is the true 
spiritual worship performed, and the body of 
Christ edified ; yea, it may, and hath often fallen 
out among us, that divers meetings have past 
without one word; and yet our souls have been 
greatly edified and refreshed, and our _ hearts 
wonderfully overcome with the secret sense of 
God’s power and spirit, which without words have 
been ministered from one vessel to another. This 
is indeed strange and incredible to the mere natural 
and carnally-minded man, who will be apt to judge 
all time lost where there is not something spoken 
that is obvious to the outward senses. ...”’ 
“From this principle of man’s being silent and) 
not acting in the things of God of himself, until 
thus actuated by God’s light and grace in the heart, 
did naturally spring that manner of sitting silent 
together, and waiting together upon the Lord. For 
many thus principled, meeting together in the pure 
fear of the Lord, did not apply themselves presently 
to speak, pray or sing, etc., being afraid to be found 
acting forwardly in their own wills, but each made 
it their work to retire inwardly to the measure of 
grace in themselves, not being only silent as to 
words, but even abstaining from all their own 
thoughts, imaginations and desires ; so watching in 
a holy dependence upon the Lord, and meeting 


22 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


together not only outwardly in one place, but thus 
inwardly in one Spirit, and in one name of Jesus, 
which in His power and virtue, they come thereby 
to enjoy and feel the arisings of this life, which 
as it prevails in each particular, becomes as a flood 
of refreshment, and overspreads the whole meeting : 
for man, and man’s part and wisdom being denied 
and chained down in every individual, and God 
exalted, and His Grace in dominion in the heart, 
thus His name comes to be one in all, and His glory 
breaks forth, and covers all; and there is such a 
holy awe and reverence upon every soul, that if 
the natural part should arise in any, or the wise 
part, or what is not one with the life, it would 
presently be chained down, and judged out. And 
when any are, through the breaking forth of this — 
power, constrained to utter a sentence of exhortation 
or praise, or to breathe to the Lord in prayer, then 
all are sensible of it; for the same life in them 
answers to it, as in water face answereth to face.” 
Not only in this passage, but again and again 
elsewhere, does Barclay make appeal to the test of 
experience :— : 
“And there being many joined together in the 
isame work, there is an inward travail and wrestling ; 
‘and also, as the measure of grace is abode in, an 
overcoming of the power and spirit of darkness ; 
and thus we are often greatly strengthened and 
renewed in the spirits of our minds without a word, 
and we enjoy and possess the holy fellowship and 
communion of the body and blood of Christ, by 
which our inward man is nourished and fed, which 
makes us not to dote upon outward water, and 
bread and wine, in our spiritual things. Now as 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 23 


many thus gathered together grow up in the strength 
power and virtue of truth, and as truth comes thus 
to have victory and dominion in their souls, then 
they receive an utterance, and speak steadily to the 
edification of their brethren, and the pure life hath 
a free passage through them, and what is thus 
spoken edifieth the body indeed. Such is the 
evident certainty of that Divine strength that is 
communicated by thus meeting together, and waiting 
in silence upon God, that sometimes when one hath 
come in that hath been unwatchful and wandering 
in his mind, or suddenly out of the hurry of out- 
ward business, and so not inwardly gathered with 
the rest, so soon as he retires himself inwardly, this 
power being in a good measure raised in the whole 
meeting, will suddenly lay hold upon his spirit, and 
wonderfully help to raise up the good in him, and 
beget him into the sense of the same power, to the 
melting and warming of his heart; even as the 
warmth would take hold upon a man that is cold 
coming in to a stove, or as a flame will lay hold 
upon some little combustible matter being near 
unto it. Yea, if it fall out that severai met together 
be straying in their minds, though outwardly silent, 
and so wandering from the measure of grace in 
themselves (which through the working of the 
enemy, and negligence of some, may fall out), if 
either one come in, or may be in, who is watchful, 
and in whom the Life is raised in a great measure, 
as that one keeps his place, he will feel a secret 
travail for the rest in a sympathy with the seed 
which is oppressed in the other, and kept from 
arising by their thoughts and wanderings; and as 
such a faithful one waits in the light, and keeps 


24 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


in this divine work, God oftentimes answers the 
secret travail and breathings of His own seed through 
such a one, so that the rest will find themselves 
secretly smitten without words, and that one will 
be as a midwife through the secret travails of his 
soul to bring forth the life in them, just as a little 
water thrown into a pump brings up the rest, — 
whereby life will come to be raised in all, and the 
vain imaginations brought down; and such a one 
is felt by the rest to minister life unto them without 
words.”’ 

This metaphor of Barclay’s of the travail of soul 
which one may go through for another touches on 
a thought which was afterwards developed by 
Madame Guyon in a remarkable way. 

Sometimes the “‘ inward travail’’ of such meetings 
was accompanied, as Barclay notes, by physical 
effects, which might be compared perhaps with the 
experience of prayer meetings or consecration 
meetings in a religious “revival’’ in our own 
day. ‘‘ Sometimes,” he writes, ‘“‘ the power of God 
will break forth into a whole meeting, and there will 
be such an inward travail, while each is seeking 
to overcome the evil in themselves, that by the 
strong contrary workings of these opposite powers, 
like the going of two contrary tides, every individual 
‘will be strongly exercised as in a day of battle, 
‘and thereby trembling and a motion of the body 


‘will be upon most, if not upon all, which, as the 


3 
5, 


‘power of truth prevails, will from pangs and groans 
end with a sweet sound of thanksgiving and praise. 
And from this the name of Quakers, i.e. Tremblers, 
was first reproachfully cast upon us.” 

Singing, indeed, was not entirely unknown in the 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 25 


early Quaker meetings, as shown by Barclay’s 
statement :— 

“As to the singing of psalms... we confess! 
this to be a part of God’s worship, and very sweet | 
and refreshing, when it proceeds from a true sense 
of God’s love in the heart, and arises from the 
divine influence of the Spirit, which leads souls to 
breathe forth either a sweet harmony, or words suit- 
able to the present condition whether they be words 
formerly used by the saints and recorded in scripture, 
such as the Psalms of David, or other words: as 
were the hymns and songs of Zacharias, Simeon, 
and the blessed Virgin Mary.’’ (Though he goes 
on to point out that by the formal use of such singing 
“oftentimes great and horrid lies are said in the sight 
of God.’’) 

Other writers might also be cited to show that, 
spontaneous singing sometimes occurred in the 
meetings of the early Quakers, though they shared’ 
the objection of other Puritans to instrumental ' 
music. * 

In a later paragraph Barclay points out that 
the silence of Quaker worship is no end in itself: 
“For as our worship consisteth not in words, so 
neither in silence, as silence; but in an holy . ° 
dependence of the mind upon God: from which j 
dependence silence necessarily follows in the first | 
place, until words can be brought forth, which are | 
from _God’s-Spirit. And God is not wanting to move 
in his children to bring forth words of exhortation 





* The original (Dutch) edition of Sewell’s “‘ History of 
the Quakers,” gives not only the words but the music of 
the hymn of praise composed and sung by Catherine Evans 
in the prison at Malta. 


26 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


or prayer, when it is needful; so that of the many 
gatherings and meetings of such as are convinced 
of the truth, there is scarce any in whom God 
raiseth not up some or other to minister to his 
brethren; and there are few meetings that are 
altogether silent. For when many are met together 
in this one life and name, it doth most naturally 
and frequently excite them to pray to and praise 
God, and stir up-one another by mutual exhortation 
and instructions; yet we judge it needful there 
be in the first place some time of silence, during 
which every one may be gathered inward to the 
word and gift of grace, from which he that minis- 
tereth may receive strength to bring forth what he 
ministereth ; and that they that hear may have a 
sense to discern betwixt the precious and the vile, — 
and not to hurry into the exercise of these things 
so soon as the bell rings, as other Christians do. 
Yea, and we doubt not, but assuredly know, that 
the meeting may be good and refreshful, tho’ from 
the sitting down to the rising up thereof there hath 
not been a word as outwardly spoken, but yet life 
may have been known to abound in each particular, 
and an inward growing up therein and thereby, yea, 
so as words might have been spoken acceptably 
and from the life: yet there being no absolute 
necessity laid upon any one so to do, all might 
have chosen rather quietly and silently to possess 
and enjoy the Lord in themselves, which is very 
sweet and comfortable to the soul that hath thus 
learned to be gathered out of all its own thoughts 
and workings, to feel the Lord to bring forth both 
the will and the deed, which many can declare by 
a blessed experience.” 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 27 


This passage, while it shows clearly that the 
purely silent meeting was exceptional among the; 
early Quakers, indicates also, perhaps, the danger 
of that quietism which became characteristic of}. 
the silent meeting at a later stage in Quaker history, 
when the silence was treated almost as an end in 
itself. 

Going on to speak of the need for waiting upon 
God in silence, Barclay says: ‘‘He that cometh 
to learn of a master, if he expect to hear his master 
and be instructed by him, must not continually 
be speaking of the matter to be taught, and never 
be quiet, otherwise how shall his master have time 
to instruct him? ... If the soul be still thinking 
and working in her own will, and busily exercised 
in her own imaginations, though the matters as 
in themselves may be good concerning God, yet 
thereby she incapacitates herself from discerning 
the still, small voice of the spirit... . This great, 
duty then of waiting upon God, must needs bg 
exercised in man’s denying self, both inwardly an 
outwardly, in a still and mere dependence upo 
God, in abstracting from all the workings, imagina- 
tions and speculations of his own mind.... And 
man being thus stated, the little seed of righteousness 
which God hath planted in his soul, and Christ 
hath purchased for him, even the measure of grace 
and life, which is burdened and crucified by man’s 
natural thoughts and imaginations, receives a place 
to arise, and becometh a holy birth and geniture 
in man, and is that Divine air in and by which man’s 
soul and spirit comes to be leavened... . And so 
man’s place is to wait in this; and as hereby there 
are any objects presented to his mind concerning 








{ 


28 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


God, or things relating to religion, his soul may be 
exercised in them without hurt, and to the great 
profit both of himself and others; because those 
things have their rise not from his own will, but 
from God’s Spirit ; and therefore as in the arisings 
and movings of this his mind is still to be exercised 
in thinking and meditating, so also in the more 
obvious acts of preaching and praying. And so it 
may hence appear we are not against meditation, 
as some have sought falsely to infer from our 
doctrine; but we are against the thoughts and 
imaginations of the natural man in his own will, 
from which all errors and heresies concerning the 
Christian religion in the whole world have pro- 
ceeded. But if it please God at any time, when 
one or more are waiting upon him, not to present © 
such objects as give them occasion to exercise their 
minds in thoughts and imaginations, but purely | 
to keep them in this holy dependence, and as they 
persist therein, to cause the secret refreshment and 
the pure incomes of his holy life to flow in upon 
them, then they have good reason to be content, 
because by this, as we know by good and blessed 
experience, the soul is more strengthened, renewed 
and confirmed in the love of God, and armed against 
the power of sin, than any way else; this being a 
foretaste of that real and sensible enjoyment of God, 
which the saints in heaven daily possess, which God 
frequently affords to his children here for their 
comfort and encouragement, especially when they 
are assembled together to wait upon him.” 

In considering this passage, we must remember 
that Barclay in common with other Puritan thinkers 
of this day accepted the received Augustinian view 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 29 


of fallen human nature, from which it followed that 
all merely human activity of the mind was tainted 
with wrong. The only acceptable activity must be 
God-given, not man’s work, and therefore the out- 
growth of that Divine Seed which is implanted in 
every man. It is important, however, to realize | 
that Barclay’s conception of silent worship does | 
not reduce it to a merely negative attitude of mind |, 
and soul. There must, indeed, be an effort to! 
purge the mind, not only of wandering thoughts, 
but of the thoughts and desires which may have 
filled it as the worshipper first sat down, and which 
may not really be the proper subject of meditation. 
There must be an expectant attitude of soul, 
expressed in the word “ waiting,’’ which is very: 
far from mere passivity, but calls for a deep exercise! 
of one’s inmost nature. The response to this may 
not be expressed in terms of formulated thought, 
or even of thought, as we know it, at all, but in 
something which is realized as affecting the very 
roots of one’s being, or it may come in that form 
of meditation which is truly an act of devotion, 
the theme dwelt on being unfolded in the sense of 
the Divine presence and with a constant desire for 
the Divine guidance. 

Barclay notes with delight that silent waiting. 
upon God is something which “the devil cannot ° 
counterfeit,’’ though ‘‘ he can accompany the priest 
to the altar, the preacher to the pulpit, the zealot 
to his prayers, yea, the doctor and professor of 
divinity to his study, and there he can cheerfully 
suffer him to labour and work among his books, 
yea, and help him to find out and invent subtile 
distinctions and quiddities, by which both his 


30 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


mind, and_others_ through him, may be kept from 
lieeding God’s light in the conscience, and waiting 
upon him.* ... And therefore when the soul 
comes to this silence, and, as it were, is brought to 
tnothingness, as to her own workings, then the devil 
is shut out ; for the pure presence of God and shining 
‘of his light he cannot abide, because so long as a 
man is thinking and meditating as of himself, he 
cannot be sure~.but the devil is influencing him 
therein; but when_he comes wholly to_be. silent, 
as the pure Light ‘of God shines in upon him, then he 
is sure that the devil is shut out; for beyond the 
imaginations he cannot go, which we often find by 
sensible experience. ... He can well enter and 
work in a meeting, that is silent only as to words, 
either by keeping the minds in various thoughts 
and imaginations, or by stupefying them, so as to 
overwhelm them with a spirit of heaviness and 
slothfulness ; but when we retire out of all, and are 
turned in, both by being diligent and watchful 
upon the one hand, and also silent and retired out 
of all our thoughts upon the other, as we abide 
in this sure place, we feel ourselves out of his 
reach.”’ 





* We may perhaps feel that Barclay is needlessly severe 
on the learning of the doctor of divinity, and does not make 
allowance enough for the Divine guidance that may be given 
in preparation and in study: certainly this was too often 
overlooked by succeeding generations of Quakers. But one 
must recall that he wrote at a time when lengthy and 
elaborate sermons, nicely divided into numerous headings 
and sub-headings, strained the intellect and patience of 
preachers and congregations alike, and religion was in danger 
of being regarded as concerned with schemes of thought 
and “notions ’”’ rather than with the deepest experience of 
the heart and will. 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 31 


Happy Barclay! Succeeding generations have 
known both the difficulty of wayward and wandering’ 
thoughts and the drowsiness to which it is all too 
easy to give way during the silence which should 
have been better utilized. 

In yet another respect Barclay claims superiority 
for silent worship. ‘‘ The excellency of this worship 
doth appear, in that it can neither be stopt nor 
interrupted by the malice of men or devils, as all 
others can. ... For how far soever people be 
separate or hindered from coming together, yet 
as every one is inwardly gathered to the measure 
of life in himself, there is a secret unity and felow-| 
ship enjoyed, which the devil and all his instruments? 
can never break or hinder... .” 

“Tt doth as well appear as to those molestations 
which occur, when we are met together, what 
advantage this true and spiritual worship gives us 
beyond all others, seeing in despite of a thousand 
interruptions and abuses, one of which were sufficient 
to have stopt all other sorts of Christians, we have 
been able, through the nature of this worship, to 
keep it uninterrupted as to God, and also at the 
same time to show forth an example of our Christian 
patience towards all, even oftentimes to the reaching 
and convincing of our opposers. For there is no 
sort of worship used by others which can subsist 
(though they be permitted to meet) unless they be 
authorized and protected by the magistrate, or 
defend themselves by the arm of flesh. .. .” 

“For how can the Papists say their mass, if there 
be any there to disturb and interrupt them? Do 
but take away the massbook, the chalice, the host, 
or the priest’s garments, yea, do but spill the water 


32 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


or the wine, or blow out the candles (a thing quickly 
done), and the whole business is marred, and no 
sacrifice can be offered. Take from the Lutherans 
or Episcopalians their Liturgy or Common-Prayer- 
Book and no service can be said. Remove from 
the Calvinists, Arminians, Socinians, Independents 
or Anabaptists, the pulpit, the bible and the hour- 
glass, or make but such a noise that the voice of 
the preacher cannot be heard, or disturb him but 
so before he come, or strip him of his bible or his 
books, and he must be dumb: for they all think 
it an heresy to wait to speak as the Spirit of God 
giveth utterance; and thus easily their whole 
worship may be marred. But when people meet 
together and their worship consisteth not in such 
outward acts, and they depend not upon any one’s | 
speaking, but merely sit down to wait upon God, 
and to be gathered out of all visibles, and to feel 
the Lord in Spirit, none of these things can hinder 
them, of which we may say of a truth, we are 
sensible witnesses.” 


Isaac Penington, a mystic whose writings have 
had a deep influence on many of their readers, 
refers repeatedly in his different works to the Quaker 
view of silent worship, and in the little tractate 
entitled: “A Brief Account Concerning Silent 
Meetings ; the Nature, Use, Intent and Benefit of 
Them,’’* there are several passages which may be 
set beside similar ones in Barclay. 

‘And this is the manner of their worship. They 
are to wait upon the Lord, to meet in the silence 
‘of the flesh, and to watch for the stirrings of his 

* Works, Vol IV, p. 57 seq. 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 33 


life, and the breakings forth of his power among 
them. And in the breakings forth of that power 
they may pray, speak, exhort, rebuke, sing or 
mourn, etc., according as the Spirit teaches, requires, 
and gives utterance. But if the Spirit do not require 
to speak, and give to utter, then every one is to be 
still in his place (in his heavenly place, I mean), 
feeling his own measure, feeding thereupon, 
receiving therefrom (into his spirit) what the Lord 
giveth. ... And then also there is the life of the 
whole felt in every vessel that is turned to its! 
measure ; insomuch as the warmth of life in each 
vessel doth not only warm the particular, but they | 
are like an heap of fresh and living coals, warming 
one another, insomuch as a great strength, freshness, 
and vigour of life flows into all. And if any be 
burthened, tempted, buffeted by Satan, bowed 
down, overborne, languishing, afflicted, distressed, 
etc., the estate of such is felt in spirit and secret 
cries or open (as the Lord pleaseth) ascend up to 
the Lord for them, and they many times find ease 
and relief, in a few words spoken, or without words, 
if it be the season of their help and relief with the 
Lord. 

“For absolutely silent meetings (wherein there 
is a resolution not to speak) we know not; but we 
wait on the Lord, either to feel Him in words, or in 
silence of spirit without words, as He pleaseth. 
And that which we aim at, and are restricted by 
the Spirit of the Lord as to silent meetings, is that 
the flesh in every one be kept silent, and that there 


be no building up, but in the Spirit and power of 


the Lord. 
‘ Now there are several states of people: some 
a 


34 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


feel little of the Lord’s presence ; but feel tempta- 
tions and thoughts, with many wanderings and 
rovings of mind. These are not yet acquainted 
with the power, or at least know not its dominion, 
but rather feel the dominion of the evil over the 
good in them. And this is a. sore travailing and 
mournful state, and meetings to such as these (many 
times) may seem to themselves rather for the worse 
than for the better. Yet even these, turning, as 
much as may be, from such things, and cleaving 
(or at least in truth of heart desiring to cleave) 
to that which disliketh or witnesseth against these, 
have acceptance with the Lord herein; and con- 
tinuing to wait in this trouble and distress (keeping 
close to meetings, in fear and subjection to the 
Lord who requireth it, though with little appearing 
benefit), do reap an hidden benefit at present, and 
shall reap a more clear and manifest benefit after- 
wards, as the Lord wasteth and weareth out that 
in them, wherein the darkness hath its strength.” 
_ Even in that early day the danger of a dead and 
formal silence was a real one; for we find Penington 
\ "writing in 1671 from Reading Goal to ‘‘ Friends in 
Truth in Chalfont and thereabouts ’”’ an epistle in 
which he pleads: ‘‘ And I beseech you in the bowels 
of tender love, take heed of sluggishness, or care- 
lessness or deadness of spirit in your meetings ; these 
things in no wise become the Lord’s people, nor 
\your professions of waiting upon the living God; 
iye are to look up, to watch, wait and breathe for 
\the Lord to be exercised by His Spirit, to have to 
do with Him before whom all things are naked and 
bare, to offer up that acceptable sacrifice of a broken 
heart, of love, life, humility, thanksgiving, etc., and 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 35 


to receive what the Father of mercies stands ready 
(in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of 
His love) to give forth unto you. Can you be thus 
exercised, while in a drowsy, sluggish, careless 
spirit? Do not such dishonour the Lord, whose 
name ye should honour? ”’ * 

The emphasis laid by Penington on the active 
character of the act of waiting upon God had been 
expressed at an earlier date by a small tract : “‘ Silent 
Meeting, a wonder to the world,”’ published in 1660 
by William Britten, who, as he tells us, was one 
who had “formerly passed through a_ two-fold 
ministry, first as a gifted man in the national, 
secondly as a Baptist, and now brought to wait 


- on God in silence.” 





“T have found and felt,’’ says Britten, ‘“‘ more 
of the Lord’s presence in one silent meeting than 
I have done in a hundred sermons preached by me 
in times past, and though then I did deliver them 
with much zeal.’’ He goes on to point out that 
worshippers “‘must in the power of Jesus Christ 
sincerely strive to have these three things in them- 
selves: I. A spiritual watch, II. A Spiritual touch- 
stone, III. The Spiritual scales.”” The spiritual 


a 


watch, or active waiting upon God, being the first | 


condition of worship, while the second was required | 
to try each work, word or thought which then might | 
be presented to the mind, and the third “ to weigh, | 
ponder, or consider all things to be spoken or’ 


done.”’ Tf 
To those who worship in a silent meeting to-day 
the three requisites which William Britten names 
are still as needful as they were to those to whom 
* Works, Vol. IV, pp. 513-514. Tf. Op. citi; pp. 9;-x9. 


36 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


he wrote. We can readily see the importance of 
the spiritual scales and of the spiritual touch- 
stone, but the first pre-requisite is the spiritual 
watch. 

We are dealing with a region of deep spiritual 
experience, where the metaphors we use are ob- 
viously but imperfect symbols, and yet may 
be more helpful than the language of abstract 
thought, which. is itself but a more shadowy form 
of metaphor. * 

The nature of this watchfulness of the spirit is 
well explained at a later date by the Quaker philan- 
thropist, John Bellers, in a little pamphlet, published 
in 1703, “ Watch unto Prayer.”’ 

“Watching is as needful to the soul as breathing 
to the body. ... As breathing, whilst living, is 
inseparable from the body, so watching is in- 
separable from the soul, whilst it lives towards 
Coole reir ys” 

“Watchfulness is the great preparation of the 
soul, in order to bring every thought into captivity 
to the obedience of Christ. ... This is to have 
conversation in heaven. A sincere man (upon 
his watch), though his body stands upon the earth, 
yet his soul reaches unto heaven, where are the 
spirits of just men and angels, and where God is, 
the Judge of all.” 


* It may be asked whether the use of the scales and the 
touchstone imply an ethical value judgment. This is not 
necessarily always consciously present in such a spiritual 
process, yet it is probably there in the background, wherever | 
the worshipper tries to test thoughts and resolves by the 
light of the Spirit of God, as manifested not only in his own 
conscience but in that of the prophets and saints, and above 
all through the personality of Jesus Christ. 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 37 
Watchfulness is first, he adds, a duty, and then 


becomes a delight. If the mind “is not first pre-) 


pared by a due watchfulness out of meetings, and| 
by it reduced to the temper of good ground, but; 
that the mind by unwatchfulness is left as the 
stony, thorny or highway ground, that man will 
be much indisposed for the worship of God, when 
he comes into a meeting. ... A bare turning the 
thoughts of the mind inward, when one comes 


into meeting (without it be prepared by watch- 


fulness), is not the true spiritual worship; for as 
out of the heart comes the issues of life, so doth 
the issues of death also; such as lust, adultery, 
anger, murder, etc.... But he that watches in 
the Light (to bring his thoughts into captivity to 
the obedience of Christ), it will lead him to the 
New Jerusalem (from whence it shines), where the 
Lord God and the Lamb are not only the Light 
thereof, but also the Temple to worship in: but 
nothing that defiles can enter there; and yet the 
gate stands always open to such as walk in the 
light, but to none that walk in darkness (or evil 
thoughts), because there is no night there’ (‘‘ Watch 
unto Prayer,’’ 1703). | 

In a later work he writes :— 

‘The silence of a religious and spiritual worship, 
is not a drowsy, unthinking state of mind, but a 


sequestring or withdrawing of it from all visible} 


objects and vain imaginations, unto a fervent 


praying to or praising the invisible omnipresent) 


. 


nN coe 


cenirsn pa 


a 


God in His Light and Love ; His Light gives wisdom 


and knowledge, and His Love gives power and 
strength, to run the ways of His commandments 
with delight. But except all excesses of the body 


838 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


and passions of the mind are avoided (through 
watchfulness) the soul doth not attain true silence ”’ 
(“An Epistle to the Quarterly Meeting of London 
and Middlesex,” 1718, p. 14). 
_It is impossible to turn from a perusal of the 
writings of the seventeenth-century Quakers, in 
which frequent reference is made to their worship, 
without feeling that they are aglow with a great 
experience. Their style may be formless and full 
of redundancies, their argument may sometimes 
halt, but this experience dominates their whole 
thought. It has given life a new meaning to them. 
They are conscious of the reality of the Divine 
Presence in their lives, convinced that for every 
man there is a like possibility if the Divine Seed, 
,bruised and buried though it be, be allowed to 
grow and take its true place. Their attempts to 
explain in the language of thought this experience, 
and this faith of theirs, were necessarily imperfect 
and coloured by the conceptions of their age. They 
accepted a large part of the orthodox religious 
thought of their time. Man’s fallen nature, in their 
i view, had no hope in itself other than this God- 
given Light or Seed, the vehiculum Det, as Barclay 
calls it, present in all men, though oppressed by 
wrongdoing and prevented from growing and 
dominating man’s life as it should. Can we put 
into modern language the conception of worship 
for which Barclay pleads? The meeting for worship 
is an opportunity for united fellowship in seeking 
union of will with the Divine Presence, and the 
illumination of thought by the Divine Light. Silence 
‘is not worship, but the opportunity for true worship. 
| This worship involves not only outward but inward 







SILENCE AND WORSHIP 39 


stillness, the laying down of selfish desires and' 


thoughts, the concentration of the will and of the 
whole nature of the worshippers upon the Divine 


Presence, no negative or passive attitude of spirit, — 


but rather one of tense activity. It does not exclude 
meditation, but the meditation must be under the 
sense of the Presence of God. There must, how- 
ever, be times of silence not only from words, but 
also from thoughts, if we are to hear the Divine 
voice within us.* This worship is no mere individual 
act : one worshipper helps the others, both consciously 


Sane ae 


Sal 


and unconsciously. Spoken words of prayer or, 


praise or exhortation may come to one and another, 
and if they are “‘in the life,” they will be helpful 
to all. However wise the words, or however well 
intentioned, if they have just been spoken in the 
worshipper’s own will, they will fail to find the 
response in the listeners which a few simple words, 
spoken “in the life,” will receive. Premeditated 
utterances, as the early Quakers taught, do not 
necessarily exclude the operation of Divine grace, 


but tend to do so. In Barclay’s view premeditated | 
sermons and a fixed liturgy were sometimes made, 


use of by the Divine goodness, but this did not 


cen Oe 


justify, as he held, their retention, when a more | 


perfect and spiritual way had been revealed. 

In the course of the eighteenth century the 
character of Quaker meetings for worship under- 
went a gradual change. The number of meetings 
held entirely in silence increased, and there were 


* “Love silence, even in the mind,” writes William Penn. 

_ . True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit 
what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment ” 
(““ Advice to his children,” in Works, Vol. I, p. 899). 


66 


40 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


sfewer powerful travelling preachers. The dread of 
| reliance upon the faculties of the natural man 
| became more strongly marked. Ministry was looked 
upon with awe as a solemn Heaven-sent gift, 
descending from above and operating through the 
humble submission of the will of the minister to be 
ithe instrument of the Divine message. A peculiar 
intonation of the voice became very general amongst 
Quaker ministers when preaching or praying. 

The printed Journals of ministers of this period 
show with what dread they received their first calls 
4to speak in the ministry, how awful the duty was 
ft to be, and how often it was only after long and 
(deep spiritual struggles that they were willing. to 
appear in the ministry. 

In faithfully endeavouring to follow their inward 
Guide these Quaker ministers had often to go through 
bitter and difficult experiences, as when a travelling 
minister at an appointed public meeting, and some- 
,times even at a series of such meetings, remained 

the wholé time in silence, feeling that he had no 
/message given him for those who had come, beyond — 
‘the inward travail of soul through which he passed. 
At the other extreme is the curious fact that thank- 
fulness was sometimes felt for the very length at 
which a minister was enabled to speak. There was 
ho provision in such a conception of ministry for 
teaching, involving systematic thought and study, 
though in some cases a richly stored and thoughtful 
mind unconsciously was used to good effect. We 
may find an instance of this in the sermons of Samuel 
Fothergill of Warrington, who was one of the most 
noted of Quaker preachers, some of whose dis- 
courses were taken down in shorthand and published, 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 41 


and were widely read long after his death. It is 
easy for us to-day to see the weakness of a purely 
prophetic ministry and the accompanying lack of 
teaching. On the other hand, there were many} 
cases of remarkable spiritual vision, in which the} 
minister was enabled to ‘‘ speak to the condition ” | 
both of groups of people and of individuals with 
decisive results. Perhaps the finest flower of 
eighteenth-century Quaker worship may be found, 
in the life of John Woolman, whose sensitive spirit 
entered into such marvellous sympathy with those 
with whom his lot was cast, and who lived in such 
faithful communion with his Master that he was 
able in a remarkable degree to put himself alongside 
the needs of those whom he addressed and to bring 
them the message which would raise their lives to 
a new level.* But as a consequence of the accepted 
view of the nature of the ministry as something 
quite apart from the conscious co-operation in! 
thought of the minister, many thoughtful and) 
deeply religious members never opened their mouths | 
in a meeting for worship or conceived of their own | 
experience of thought and mind as in any way | 
connected with a possible preparation for minis- | 
terial service, the very idea of human preparation 
for such work being contrary to their conception 





* One of the last of Woolman’s writings was his little 
essay on silent worship, in which he characteristically notes 
that the great expense often arising in connection with other 
forms of worship involved a burden of labour upon many 
poor people which Christian simplicity would avoid. He 
realized the strangeness of silent worship to many who 
attended a Quaker meeting and longed that Friends might 
_“‘Tive answerable to the nature of an inward fellowship with 
God, that no stumbling-block, through us, may be laid in 
their way.” 


42 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


of worship. * This view of worship and ministry 
twas no doubt strengthened by the widespread 
treading of the teaching of continental Quietist 
riters, such as Madame Guyon and Molinos, in 
articular through a little volume, largely extracted 
from their writings and from those of Fénélon, 
entitled, ‘‘A Guide to True Peace,’ which went 
through a number of editions in the early nineteenth 
century. At this time there were Friends who 
considered the silent meeting as the ideal one, and 
such a West of England Friend declared in the 
Yearly Meeting that he was thankful to say that in 
his meeting there had been no vocal ministry for 
many years. One can imagine what courage and 
strength of conviction would be needed before any 
member of such a meeting ventured to engage in 
ministry. Too often drowsiness fell upon those 
who should have been worshipping, and it became 
necessary to watch against this as a besetting sin, 
and a query dealing with this danger was yearly 
considered and answered by all meetings. 
Meanwhile there had already begun within the 
Society, though later than in other English denomina- 
.tions, the evangelical revival which culminated in 
the second half of the nineteenth century. With 
it came an increased study of the Scriptures and 
'a strong revulsion from the Quietist attitude of 
mind. The movement was vigorously opposed for 






* This is illustrated in the “‘ Spiritual Diary ”’ (1776) of 
Dr. John Rutty of Dublin. In the numerous references 
to meetings for worship the writer shows hardly a trace of 
any thought of his being given a message of ministry to others, — 
though he wrote on religious subjects and spoke helpfully 
on the occasion of religious visits to private families, and was 
deeply concerned for the religious hfe of his Society. 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 48 


long, and the new methods were condemned as 
“creaturely activities,’ but gradually the move- 
ment gained ground and became increasingly 
dominant, though the earlier school of thought 
never disappeared, and the two streams mingle 
in present-day Quaker life. 

One result of the evangelical revival was a change 
in the character of much of the ministry, some of, 
which became expository in character. Wide fields) 
of Christian literature were studied by men who 
valued their fellowship with other denominations, 
and felt more in common with them than with 
Quaker mystics of a non-evangelical type. There 
was a revulsion from what seemed, and sometimes 
was, a morbid introspection; instead of the 
worshipper being advised to “turn in” or “‘ centre 
down”’ in order to realize true worship, he was 
urged to an effort of faith, to an exercise of thought 
and will to apprehend the gospel revelation of, 
Christ. The wide extension of philanthropic andy 
political activities which accompanied the evangelical 
movement also enlarged the horizon of worshippers' 
and ministers alike. The needs of suffering humanity 
and the duties of citizenship became more frequently 
a theme of thought, of prayer and exhortation. 
Private religious study, in particular the study of; 
the Scriptures, played, consciously or Rar 
an increasingly important part in preparing the 
mind of the worshipper for the times of worship. - 
Some of the leading evangelical ministers of this 
period were also mystics, with a deep personal 
experience of mystical worship; others, while 
accepting unquestioningly the methods and ex- 
periences of an earlier Quakerism, regarded them 


44 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


as little more than minor accidental differences of 
comparatively small importance beside the great 
fundamental truths of historic Christianity ; for them 
the silence of their meeting was warmed by the glow 
of faith in a personal Saviour, by the love they had 
seen revealed in the Cross: they could be happy 
in meditation over this, or over some portion of 
scripture, or in seeking to find what the mind of 
the Master might be for some problem of conduct ; 
but they could not have used the language of the 
mystics to describe their experience of silent prayer, 
and were glad to join in instituting meetings of a 
different type, with music, singing and pre-arranged 
addresses, which were felt to meet the needs of those 
not used to the Quaker silence. These ‘“ Mission 
Meetings,’’ as they were usually called, were held 
in the evening, the morning meetings continuing 
upon the old basis of silence. 
Of recent years there has been a tendency for 
, such meetings to be replaced by “ Fellowship 
| Meetings,” in which short periods of devotional 
‘silence have a regular place, along with music, 
_ hymns and pre-arranged addresses. In other places 
| the ordinary evening worship on a basis of silence 
|is combined with the reading and exposition of 
some scripture passage or devotional writing, or 
with a pre-arranged address of a teaching character. 
One who has been brought up in the Quaker fold 
does not come to the silence of worship as to some- 
thing isolated and apart from the rest of his life. 
He has been accustomed to the brief period of 
silent worship accompanying the reading of the 
Scriptures in the family circle, usually beside the 
morning breakfast-table; every family meal is 





ee 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 45 


preceded, not by a formal spoken grace, but by a 
moment or two of silence, as the opportunity for 
prayer spoken or unspoken ; at the opening and at 
the close of all business meetings for Church affairs, 
and at almost all committees of the Society he is 
accustomed to a few minutes of silence, and some- 
times to longer periods of similar worship; and 
when stages of difficulty are reached in the course 
of the business discussion it is equally natural, at 
the suggestion of the presiding clerk or of some 
individual, or occasionally by a common instinctive 
act, to seek in silent prayer for a way of unity and 
concord, or for some new light upon a difficulty 
that seems insurmountable. Apart from _ these 
collective acts, there remains also the preparation 
of the background of individual prayer and silent 
meditation, which gives its strength to the ministry 
of daily life, just as the background of collective 
silent prayer does to the ministry of worship. 

In one respect a definite change has taken place. 
The seventeenth-century Quaker writers emphasized 
the importance of silence as a stillness of the 
mind from all lower and self-prompted intellectual 
activities, though far from excluding a higher form 


of meditation. In the eighteenth century the) 


Quietest attitude became more pronounced and the 


mind of the worshipper was conceived of as a pool, f 
in which every ruffle of premeditated thought should § 
be stilled : in the silence some thought might appear, | 


and might find expression in vocal ministry, but it 
was regarded as something quite apart from the 
will of the worshipper, a heavenly pebble dropped 
from above into the silent well of worship and 
sending its ripples across the stillness, in which the 





-panpigpuetslaneen 


46 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


human part was one of passive submission and 
acceptance only. This conception was closely 
, bound up, as has been already shown, with the 
Augustinian view of fallen human nature, tending 
I a distrust of man’s intellect and will and all their 
‘activities. Truth, though waiting to reveal itself 
to every soul, was thought of as coming from above, 
as the act of Divine grace and love, altogether apart 
from the will of the worshipper. The_evangelical 
yrevival brought with it almost unconsciously a great 
intellectual renaissance through the study of 
‘scripture which it advocated and provoked ; the 
‘revival at the same time encouraged an active 
lattitude of spirit.in its emphasis on the importance 
ti the act of faith, and these two changes were 
reflected in Quaker worship. The whole con- 
ception of ministry was widened, to the great benefit 
of the worshipper, whose spiritual life had been 
narrowed by the absence of a teaching ministry 
in touch with all the concrete problems of life and 
thought. But the gain was not unmixed, both for 
minister and fellow-worshippers. Too often the old 
awe and reverence which surrounded the service 
of ministry tended not merely to diminish but 
sometimes to disappear. Personal experience might 
idegenerate into anecdotage ; exposition of scripture 
ight be so elaborated that the spark of fire from 
the altar which prompted it was lost in the smoke 
of the speaker’s lucubrations ; the call for a change 
of heart and a great personal decision might itself 
become mechanical or disappear in an emotional 
appeal which did not reach deep enough, because 
it did not spring from the deepest in the speaker’s 
own spirit. 






SILENCE AND WORSHIP 4'7 


In the Society of Friends to-day we are coming 
to realize that the mystical and the evangelical 
school represent partial expressions of an ideal of 
life and worship, and that both are needed to complete: 
each other: in order that our silent worship may 
be both wide and deep, and that the ministry 
springing from it may appeal to the whole life of 
the worshipper and all the needs of his nature, it 
must not be cut off from the experience of life, the 
thought of the needs and difficulties of the world, 
from the treasures preserved in the life-stories and | 
the thoughts of saints and poets, of thinkers and 
doers, above all from meditation upon the words 
and work and the personality of the Christ of 
history. But it must also be something much more 
than this. In every true act of silent worship there 
is an act of communion, even though that communion 
is not always fully conscious, as the deepest within 
us reaches up after the Source of truth and life and 
love. All ministry springing from such silence, 
whether in prayer or praise, in the unfolding off 
teaching or the giving forth of a prophetic message 
or an evangelical appeal, if it be what it should be, 
will be given as in the sense of the Divine Presence, 
realized as coming in touch not only with the heart 
of the speaker but with the spirit of all his fellow- 
worshippers. The more fully and continuously 
that Presence is so realized, the more truly will the 
ministry fulfil its object and appeal to the deepest 
needs of the hearers. No amount of previous; 
preparation, nor even of previous prayer, can supply’ 
the place of the act of worshipping communion, by! 
which the meeting and the speaker are prepared 
for spoken words, and by which, while he speaks, the 


48 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


speaker is helped to realize that he is in the presence 
of the Master of assemblies, and only a fellow- 
servant and fellow-worshipper with those about him. 

This ideal of worship is very imperfectly realized, 
but it is realized, to some extent at least, whenever 
men meet in common discipleship with spirits 
turned together towards the guiding Presence of 
their unseen Lord. Broken and marred by 
wandering thoughts and desires it often is, and by 
words that lack the touch of true life; but even 
a few moments of true communion may make a long 
meeting worth while: nay, the very effort of spirit, 
the striving after light and fellowship, though 
uncrowned by the joy of conscious communion, 
may be of the utmost value and may form the 
needful preparation for a later happier experience. 
» In this conception of silent worship there is room 
both for meditation and for previous preparation 
Jof thought on the part of the worshippers, provided | 
always that the preparation of thought is subor- 
dinated to the sense of the Divine Presence in the 
act of united worship and to a willingness not 
merely to speak but to refrain from speaking, if — 
at the time what was previously realized as a 
helpful message is not felt to be a message for that 
meeting or for that occasion. Sometimes others 
may speak and a line of thought or an appeal be set 
forth with which the message which has come with 
one to the meeting does not seem to harmonize. 
In that case it will need a stronger sense of call 
and urgency in the message, if it is to be delivered, 
and it may need to be almost entirely recast or else 
withheld for another occasion. Sometimes, again, 
a message so withheld may return once more with 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 49 


fresh sense of urgency on some other occasion. 
‘There is room, moreover, in such worship for ministry 
of a teaching character, which involves the pre- 
paration of previous thought and study, provided 
that the speaker is in spiritual sympathy with his 
fellow-worshippers and does not disregard the need 
for the right atmosphere of previous worship, or the 
right relationship of what he is going to say with 
what others have spoken or may contribute to the 
meeting. To-day it is easier to realize than at some 
earlier periods that we are no longer concerned 
solely with the inward spiritual life of the individual 
worshippers, but with their relationship to human 
life as a whole, and we feel that it is right that 
social, industrial and international problems should 
be considered in the atmosphere of worship and in 
the light of that central Presence. This, again, 
involves thought both in the meeting and outside 
it, but it must be thought brought into relationship 
with the guiding Presence, and humbly submitted 
as material which may be made, as it were, a 
sacrament, if the Master so wills it. 

In actual experience we must admit that the ideal 
relationship of ministry to silent worship is all too 
imperfectly realized. There is liberty for all to take 
part, and sometimes the liberty is abused ; there is 
always a danger that a minister who has felt a true 
sense of call may yet “run out into words,” or that 
a message may be spoilt by over-elaboration or the 
needless intrusion of other thoughts. Yet at its 
best the ministry which springs truly in the midst 
of the fellowship of silent worship may, in spite of 
much defect of form and grammar, or even of thought 
itself, reach its goal more surely than a carefully 

4 





50 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


pre-arranged message delivered in faultless literary 
, form. The humble, broken words, the imperfect 
thoughts, spoken in the consciousness of fellowship 
, with fellow-worshippers and in the sense of depen- 
| dene upon the unseen Master’s Presence, have 
their own interpreter with them, and may help to 
| birth in the heart of the hearer a response of thought 
and will and a deeper response of the spirit which 
no eloquence or argument could have brought forth. 
The position is similar, and perhaps clearer, in 
the case of vocal prayer, that peculiarly priestly 
act of ministry. Extempore prayer can seldom 
indeed equal, and often falls pitiably short of, the 
beauty and dignity, the width of scope and nobility 
of thought of many of the great prayers of the ancient 
liturgies ; and yet, granting that often the imper- 
fections and frailties of the individual mar and 
distort the offering of extempore prayer, such prayer 
in its very nature has a quality of immediacy and 
jreality which no fixed forms of language, however 
august, can give, if it springs from the depths of 
ja spirit exercised in true worship. Extempore 
rayer may indeed, if it merely represents the 
inpremeditated thought and aspiration of the 
speaker, unlinked to his fellow-worshippers and 
without any sense of a deeper inward prompting, 
have not only all the disadvantages of the most 
formal liturgical prayer, but added drawbacks of 
its own, reflecting but too well the speaker’s personal 
limitations. Yet such prayer is not the outcome 
\of the worship of the spirit, and it is the peculiar 
advantage of silent worship that by it a unique 
‘opportunity is given to the development of prayer 
which represents not merely the aspiration of one 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 51 


individual, still less a hortatory discourse, couched 
in the form of supplication, but the expression of 
the needs and longing of one who by a priestly act 
of the spirit puts himself alongside of his fellow- 
worshippers, enters in some measure into their 
spiritual condition, and, feeling their need as his 
own, prays not only for but with them, as one of 
them, and, borne along by the spirit of prayer, raises 
with them the hands of a trusting child towards 
the unseen Father, in whose Presence all together 
stand. In such an act of prayer it may be possible 
to use ancient words, to mingle with words and 
thoughts struck from the moment’s needs the 
immemorial phrases which have through ages been 
the means of man’s petition, or simply to use the 
homely words that come most naturally to many 
men, whether lettered or unlearned. But there 
must be no striving after literary form, or thought 
for it; for if the mind is intent on that, the spirit 


loses touch of the one essential thing. He who} 


prays thus must remember that he uses words for 
men, not for the Spirit, who sees beneath the words 
and thoughts to our deepest needs. The words he 
uses must be the simplest and most natural clothing 
of his thought, his thoughts themselves no elaborate 
effort of the mind, but the humble and unadorned 
garments of his spirit, as it goes out to be the 


spokesman and representative of his fellow-wor- 
shippers and enters with them in communion with 
other seekers after truth, with suffering and sinning 


humanity, with the unseen cloud of heavenly spirits, 
and reaches out after that healing, guiding, and 
redeeming Presence before whom all are gathered 
together. 


é 


52 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


In a meeting held upon the basis of silence, if 
‘that silence be no mere form but a living one, words 
: of spoken prayer will usually spring up naturally. 
Sometimes they will form part of the prelude of 
worship and aspiration, giving perhaps a lead to 
subsequent meditation and ministry. At times 
they will follow (and often from other lips) some 
searching or uplifting message of exhortation; or, | 
again, they may form the outward crown of the 
whole period of united worship, gathering up simply 
and feelingly the aspiration and inspiration that 
have arisen through different spoken messages © 
earlier in the meeting, but reverently and briefly, 
as in the sight of the Master whose touch alone 
can make our paltry crumbs to fill the baskets with 
which we go laden homeward. Yet at times the 
deepest unity of prayer and its most perfect 
expression, after some meeting in which we have 
been brought together into great exercise of spirit 
or to some new vision of hope or of duty, is found 
(not in words, however beautiful or well chosen, but 
jin the deep hush of outward and inward alike, when — 
we bow together in thankfulness of heart, experiencing 
the reality of a communion which our thought cannot — 
fathom and our words are powerless to express. 


Is it possible for a present-day Quaker to under- 
stand the development of silent worship which has 
gone on during the past three centuries, and to realize — 
the place which it still is destined to hold ? In the 
seventeenth century silent worship was felt to be 
the means of liberation of the deepest spiritual 
activities. Those who met in this way for the first 
time had undergone a profound and awakening . 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 53 


experience: their whole life was stirred by the 
realization of the Divine Presence within them and 
within every man, and their worship was coloured 


by the thoughts and feelings which were the out 


come of this experience. In the eighteenth century, 


shared in a large degree the experience of the earlier 


though at intervals individual men and cer | 


Quakers, the silent meeting became rather a discipline 


of the spirit. Introspection was developed some 


times to a morbid degree: waiting in worship was 
too often regarded as a passive condition on the part 
of the worshipper, and a profound distrust of mere 


éé +) 


human or “ creaturely 


activity led to the neglect | 


of intellectual activity and the cultivation of a 
purely prophetic or devotional ministry. The \ 
earlier strong sense of fellowship in worship tended 


to sink into the background. 


The evangelical revival brought a renewal, of 


ieee eee re 





quictism and 1 from introspection, and accompanying 


intellectual activity, a revulsion “trom — ee 


it*Came a wider outlook on human need and social 





“and civic duty, as an outcome of renewed contact 


with the thought of the Scriptures and the historic 
personality of Jesus Christ. Yet it often lacked 
something which the earlier mystics, for all the 
narrowness of their outlook, possessed, which gave 
a distinctive quality to their worship and their 


lives. 
We are not now in danger of that atrophy o 


f 


the intellectual faculties which beset the later 
eighteenth-century Quakerism. We realize to-day 
that mind and spirit alike have their place in the 
act of worship. Silence is not an end but a oy 
f 


to an end, the united communion of the group o 


54 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


worshippers with the Divine Spirit. An act of 
thought, an act of will, may each one be made 
a sacrament, if touched by the realization of the . 
Divine Presence. 

In the sea of silence into which we are entering, 
spoken words or formed thoughts may be like a 
raft to which we may cling and move forward; 
we may swim from raft to raft, from thought to 
thought ; we may climb up upon our raft and get 
a vision of the sky above and of a little of the 
course that lies ahead of us ; but if we are to become 
strong swimmers, we must not stay upon one raft 
or be afraid to trust ourselves to the waters. : 

Dr. Thomas Hodgkin has compared the ministry 
that rises from a meeting for worship to the fruitful 
islands on the surface of a lake. We may pursue 
the image further: the islands seem isolated, but 
beneath the depths of the waters they are united 
together. This simile may often be verified in the 
experience of a meeting where the worshippers 
have been brought into a unifying silence and 
different speakers have touched upon kindred ~ 
themes or divers aspects of a common theme, in 
such a way that at the close all that has been said 
has been felt to have had a place as parts in one 
harmony. The times of silence were as essential 
a part of this whole as the spoken words. It is not © 
merely that without them it would not have been — 
possible to have taken in all that was said. The © 
intervals of quiet prayer and meditation served to — 
help one to appropriate the message already spoken, 
but also gave rise to the thoughts in which the later — 
messages took form. 

Sometimes, it is true, spoken contributions will 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 55 


mar the unity of a meeting and break the sense 
of worship. In this case there will be need for 
redoubled spiritual effort on the part of the 
worshippers that the meeting may not suffer injury. 
Silent prayer may avail to guide and help the 
hearers and even to modify or restrain the speaker’s 
part. At the worst we must follow George Herbert’s 
Siete, God) takes the text. and: preacheth 
patience.”’ 

It may be sometimes that the liberty of a silent 
meeting is taken advantage of in a different way, 
by some contentious person, possibly a stranger, 
who does not realize the nature and object of such 
worship. Even here, however, there may be found 
a remedy in silent prayer, through which our minds 
may be carried above the opposing thoughts into 
a serener region, where we may perchance find 
presented to us an answer (which we could not 
have attained by controversy) to difficulties that 
have been raised. Happily such misuse of the 


liberty of utterance is comparatively rare. On the 


other hand, experience shows the peculiar value of 
a period of united worship in bringing one who 
may have a message of ministry to deliver into 
touch with those who need it. Many cases might 
be cited in which the ministry which has followed 


a period of deep silent worship has been peculiarly 


fitted to the spiritual needs and condition either 
of certain individuals or groups, or of the meeting 
as a whole. This may in certain cases, perhaps, be 
connected with a special psychic temper, but there 
can be ‘little doubt that without the medium of 
silent prayer it would find very imperfect 
expression. 


etter ON POPC RIE 


onean 


cane hi ccenreseeNeRETe 


\ 


camara a ee 





56 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


One cause of weakness in the silent worship of 


{ present- -day Quakerism is the absence of adequate 


mental and spiritual preparation on the part of 


‘many who come to the meetings for worship. Some, 


indeed, grow up from childhood insensibly to 
appreciate their meaning and others who have 


; joined them for the first time as adults also have 


felt at once that they provided the atmosphere 
their spirits needed. But such a case as Caroline 
Stephen’s may be held to be exceptional. 

“On one never-to-be-forgotten Sunday morning 
I found myself one of a small company of silent 
worshippers, who were content to sit down together © 
without words, that each one might feel after and 
draw near to the Divine Presence, unhindered at 
least, if not helped, by any human utterance. 
Utterance, I knew, was free, should the words be 
given ; and before the meeting was over, a sentence 
or two were uttered in great simplicity by an old 
and apparently untaught man, rising in his place 
amongst the rest of us. I did not pay much 
attention to the words he spake, and I have no 
recollection of their purport. My whole soul was 
filled with the unutterable peace of the undisturbed 
opportunity for communion with God—with the 
sense that I had at last found a place where I might, 
without the faintest suspicion of insincerity, join 
with others in simply seeking His Presence. To 
sit down in silence could at least pledge me to 
nothing ; it might open to me (as it did that morning) 


, the very gate of heaven.” * 


In the case of many a worshipper it might be 
held that it would be as unreasonable to teach a 
* “ Quaker Strongholds,” pp. 3, 4. 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 57 


child to swim by throwing him into a deep pool 
of water as to plunge him unprepared into the silence 
of a Quaker meeting. Some children have been 
taught to swim in this way; others would almost 
certainly be drowned. It has been experience of 
the need for some intermediate stage which has led 
in many cases to the establishment of special 
children’s meetings, in which the children are given 
food for thought and the opportunity to join in 
hymns, often sharing also for a part of the time 
in the worship of the main meeting. For ther 
purpose of training in silent worship, the practice! 
of directed silent prayer, which has been followed 
in some other churches, may be of great value, | 
provided it is a step to a further stage of greater / 
freedom; but it cannot be regarded as adequate, 
if those who join in it are never to get further. The 
prayer of petition, and even the prayer of inter- 
cession, cannot take the place of the prayer of 
communion. 

Is it possible to suggest from Quaker experience 
that silent prayer might be made use of more widely 
in other denominations with a definite gain to the 
worshippers ? 

In silent prayer there is a unique opportunity 
for human fellowship through a medium which 
transcends all intellectual differences, in which all 
social distinctions disappear, in which the barriers | 
of language vanish, and all can meet in sincerity | 
and truth. Especially in times of deep emotional | 
and spiritual experience do we feel the inadequacy | 
of human words and even thoughts, but in silence ' 
deep answers to deep. 

Silence has a unique value as a preparation and 


58 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


background for ministry and vocal prayer, more 
especially for extempore prayer. If sermons and 
prayers could be preceded and followed by even a 
short period of devotional silence, would they not 
mean much more to all? Not only the worshippers 
but the minister himself would surely be helped 
through such an atmosphere of worship. 

The silence of common meditation is a valuable 
discipline of trdining, especially in our hurried and 
crowded modern life, in which too many find it hard 
to get the opportunities for quiet in which to think 
and pray. If this silent meditation is difficult in 
a mixed congregation, it may yet be worth while 
to arrange special opportunities for it, which wor- 
shippers could be encouraged to attend. The habit 
of seeking at intervals a period of silent prayer 
may help to give to all life a background of peace, 
which will prove of peculiar value in moments of 
stress and special difficulty. 

Most valuable of all is surely the silence of 
communion, when the outward stillness is but a 
shadow of that deeper inward hush of the spirit, 
as the souls of the worshippers bow together in the 
Presence of their unseen God and realize that the 
Divine Love and Goodness are there in their midst, 
are there to be imparted—that they are being made 
partakers of a great sacrament. At the great 
moment of some ancient pagan mystery, as the 
supreme act of worship approached, silence was 
enjoined on the worshipper. The call favete linguts 
was no mere empty priestly formula, but represents 
the natural shrinking of man’s spirit from profaning 
the Holiest with inadequate human words. The 
solemn hush that falls upon the congregation at 


SILENCE AND WORSHIP 59 


the supreme moment of the Catholic Mass is a deep 
expression of this wonderful silence of communion, 
and it is surely no accident that in the realization 
of the Divine Presence a reverent silence covers 
the worshippers. At such a moment, may we not 
understand a little of the meaning of Habakkuk’s 
fry. Lhe Lord is in His holy temple: let all the 
earth keep silence before Him ?”’ 

This silence in which a group of worshippers bow 
in spirit in the sense of the Divine Presence may 
lead to that deepest experience of communion, 
which transcends our thought and can still less be 
imaged forth in words. When the human spirit is 
permitted to have this highest fellowship of 
communion, in which joy and sorrow have new 
and fuller meaning, it is fitting that both alike 
should be transfused with a solemn awe. The soul 
realizes its fraility, its littleness, its utter un- 
worthiness, as it turns towards the Divine Light 
and Goodness; and as, in response to the Divine 
Grace, the door of the heart is opened to the heavenly 
Guest, it has no words for its adoration, for a joy 
and sorrow that cannot be uttered 


~ AN AFTERWORD 


MINISTRY IN THE QUAKER MEETING OF 
TO-DAY 


For more than two hundred and fifty years the 
Society of Friends, almost alone among Christian 
communities, has endeavoured to maintain the 
ideal and the practice of a free ministry. Other 
Churches have found a place for the lay ministry : 
in some, like the various Methodist Churches, an 
important place. For the greater part of nine 
generations it has been an essential expression of 
the very life of Quakerism. Yet it must be 
admitted that the proper carrying out of the ideal — 
of a free ministry is still a problem imperfectly 
solved by the Quaker community, however truly 
it may have been solved by particular groups or by 
individual members. 

To outsiders the Society of Friends appears to be 
a society of lay persons, without clergy or hierarchy 
of any kind. To those who strive to realize its 
ideal from within its membership, the Society is a 
fellowship where there is no layman, all of whose 
members are clergy. The aim of the Society is not 
to abolish priesthood, but to make all members of 

60 


AFTERWORD 61 


the Christian community conscious of their priestly 
powers and duties. Yet this aim is very imperfectly 
realized. Among the first two generations of Friends 
were many leaders who had been trained in other 
schools, some of them as Anglican or Puritan 
clergymen. Barclay had been educated at the 
Catholic Scottish College in Paris, Penn at Oxford, 
and under a learned French Huguenot teacher. 
They rightly maintained that a college education 
was in itself no qualification for the ministry ; that 
the call might and did come to men and women 
of no book learning, in the midst of the common 
work of the world. But they did not despise the 
education they had received. George Fox himself 
tried to learn Hebrew in later years and urged the 
importance of setting up schools for the children 
of Friends. Yet, as the years went by, the Quaker 
ideal of ministry became narrowed; the impor- 
tance of waiting for the call of God became in 
practice misapplied, as though it merely involved 
a passive state of mind, from which even thought 
itself was to be shut out. The responsibility of 
ministry was felt to be so great, that it was shunned 
as too heavy a burden; the advice of Paul to the 
members of an early Christian community to “ covet 
earnestly the best gifts’’ was not heard, save by a 
few. The Quaker community as a whole left its 
application to the individual and made no collective 
effort to help its members to make full use of this 
greatest gift of prophecy. Friends generally came 
to accept the dictum of the old Puritan con- 
troversialist: ‘God hath no need of human 
learning,’ and forgot the apt reply of the learned 
Dr. Thomas Fuller: “ Still less hath He need of 


62 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


human ignorance.” In particular, the ministry of 
teaching, as contrasted with purely devotional and 
prophetical ministry, was neglected. Even now it 
has not found an adequate place in the normal 
life of the Society as a whole. Not that gain would 
come by the intrusion into worship of elaborate 
didactic discourses which lacked a sense of fitness 
to the needs of the members, and had no “ call” 
behind them. But religious teaching is needed by 
all if all are to attain the fullest life and the widest 
service. A meeting which has no teaching ministry 
lacks something which needs to be supplied. As 
some may receive a Divine call to speak a message 
which has not been thought out beforehand, so 
others (or even the same person) may be called to 
prepare themselves to teach, to study, and think 
out, with the best help they can get, problems of 
jife which they and their fellow-members need to 
face. Ministry of this kind has been insufficiently 
encouraged. The gift of prophetic ministry is not 
something utterly unnatural and apart from our ~ 
thought. Poets, prophets, and reformers, when 
they bring men a message from God, have listened 
with their whole soul and with all their mind to 
His voice, and that voice speaks through the whole 
depth of their personality. It is a partial and 
inadequate caricature of the truth which represents 
inspiration as accompanied by a paralysis or sus- 
pension of the intelligence. With our whole being 
we are to serve God and man. With our mind’s 
best effort we must try to respond to the Divine 
call. Preparation and thought will not by them- 
Selves suffice; but the fact that a man does feel 
a call to give a message should not excuse him from 


AFTERWORD 63 


thinking, but rather in itself lay upon him the duty 
of more earnest thought. 

Until recently such teaching ministry as the 
Society of Friends enjoyed was due, on the human 
side, to the faithful service of individual Friends ; 
the only indirect provision made for it was that 
for training teachers for Quaker Schools, to some 
of whom the call to ministry came and with a richer 
background of thought and reading than that 
possessed by the majority of members. To make’ 
a wider teaching ministry possible there must be 
a higher standard of general education. The 
position of a free ministry will. be strengthened by 
more adequate provision for wider and deeper 
religious study than exists at present. Friends 
ought to be able to make their contribution to the 
common stock of Christian philosophy and Biblical 
studies through fuller provision for teaching and 
research ; and, while only a limited number may 
as yet be able to find time for advanced and 
specialized study, yet such study should be made 
possible for all and in some measure held forth as 
a duty to all. Travelling lecturers, in connection 
with Quaker colleges or working under meetings 
or Committees of the Society, should be able to hold 
courses of lectures, not only at large centres, but 
in smaller meetings too, thus helping to prepare 
the background of thought from which a thoughtful 
and helpful ministry of teaching would be fed. 

Not without effort can the Society of Friends 
maintain the priceless heritage of freedom. Each 
member must listen still in silence for the as yet 
unspoken message, for the prompting of the Divine 
.voice. But the boundaries of this freedom must 


64 SILENCE AND WORSHIP 


be widened by listening throughout the week for 
a message that may come in book or thought or 
spoken word, as well as in the silence. Some men 
are willing, with Whittier, to open all the windows 
of their hearts to the day, while they keep the 
shutters of their minds half closed at best. If the 
Society of Friends is to realize its ideal of a com- 
munity of priests in the service of humanity, the 
dedication of certain times to prayer is not enough, 
The best thoughts, the highest and deepest thinking 
of which all are capable must be brought to the 
service of God and man in a ministry which must 
be as wide as life itself. 


Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 


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